I've had a genuine KTM carbon one on for about two years without any heat shield in and the outer surface is OK - I don't have any stickers on it though. But...recently I noticed that the right hand side mounting recess, (next the the front exhaust header), had almost completely degraded on the inside due to excess heat. I had to rebuild the whole area with epoxy and carbon fibre sheet - not sure how this will hold out under prolonged use. I've taken the heat shield out of some spare rear panels and tried to cover the whole mounting point with it to protect it more than the original heat shield. I was considering wrapping the headers with heat tape as recommended by some members on this forum as it would reduce the heat radiated out in this area.